“The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.” — former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter

And in the UK, the vote on that was June 23rd. The result is there for all the world to see.

Had a mentally disturbed man not gunned down MP Jo Cox, the Brexit win might’ve been 70 percent.

Regardless, 52 percent of Britons said EU membership isn’t working for them, in one way or another.

And this is the whole point; If you’re a 1-percenter or an elite, the EU is a truly wonderful place to live. I’d have to call it an almost ‘unparalleled’ existence, living in historic Europe, beautiful Europe, a continent full of amazing cultures and such technological prowess and so much more(!) that it would take a year-long video presentation just to cover the basics.

But if you’re a ‘working stiff’ in the EU, it’s not so good.

OF COURSE, the economic problems in the EU and other Western nations, are globalization-induced. It’s so apparent it’s beyond all argument.

Fully half of the Brexiters angst could be traced or blamed on the follow-on effects of globalization.

That doesn’t give the EU governance architecture a ‘free pass’ however — on the contrary — the EU is one of the main ‘pushers’ of the globalization drug, and with that (good) drug come the (negative) side-effects;

Which are; the offshoring of jobs, higher unemployment, more competition for jobs, massive immigration / ghettoization, higher crime rates, higher societal costs (including, but not limited to; policing, court, incarceration, property damage, and intangibles like ‘how safe’ citizens feel in their own city) also higher traffic flows in airports / shipping ports / highways / and in cities — all of which suddenly require massive upgrades to handle the increased traffic. And so much more than that short list.

I’m the first to agree that the thing we call globalization is a truly wonderful and great thing! But the job is only half-done.

Globalization has created a permanent class of poor people (whose jobs were shipped to Asia, and many remaining jobs were taken by economic immigrants) a situation which has yet to be properly addressed in the EU.

When a society isn’t working for 2/5ths of the citizens, it isn’t working. Period. Full stop. Until the day it’s rectified.

And that’s what I’m hoping for. I’m waiting for the mandarins in Brussels (who can’t be fired by ‘The People’ because they’re unelected) to begin to address the shortcomings of their governance architecture — of which globalization is a major platform.

They should’ve been proactive all along, instead of spending hundreds of thousands of person-hours on what ingredients bread may, or may not have. (How ‘Soviet’ of them) I hear they’re working on the rules for shoe factories next week.

It’s difficult to believe that some people can’t understand how Britons could vote for Brexit.

Either the EU must begin holding EU-wide elections for their highest officials (to allow ‘The People’ a chance to ‘vent’ when things aren’t going well) instead of choosing to ‘_exit’ the EU,

OR

the unelected mandarins must begin to address the negative aspects of globalization for the bottom two economic quintiles (2/5ths) of the EU’s citizenry.

Otherwise, the whole thing will eventually fail — with nations continuing to join the EU, but with more leaving than joining.

Were a similar referendum to the UK referendum held in every EU nation next week, I’d expect that 52 percent (or more) of EU citizens would vote to ‘_exit’ the European Union.

And that would be a crying shame. But it wouldn’t stop it from occurring.

There are few who support the European project as sincerely as I, but there comes a time when we must be candid about successes (many) and failures (only two; But causing two other failures, for a grand total of four failures) and with more failures likely.

The failure to address the;(1) negative aspects of globalization, is caused by;(2) a democratic deficit in Brussels, which caused;(3) Swiss citizens to reject EU membership in 2014, and;(4) British citizens to Brexit in 2016.

Stay tuned for more such failures — and all of it will be on account of the democratic deficit of the eurocrats in Brussels and their failure to address the negative aspects of globalization.

2 Comments

When globalisation in the UK meant robbing from the poor to give to the rich elite, changing your culture and kicking you out of your job and home in favour of younger, cheaper immigrant workers. Not allowing you to speak up and labelling you a racist underclass. Yes we voted against it.